Logic CPU overuse

Hey guys,

This happens in Logic 9 as well as Logic X. But Im more comfortable with 9's look so in this case I am on logic 9. I am working on a project it has around 60 tracks, many of the synths or sampler instruments, so naturally CPU is feasted on. Right now there is 60 tracks.

However, even when I freeze every single track Logic still struggles to return the audio without issue. I do have sends and side chains and the like so there is still work for logic to do other than read audio, but it should be insignificant shouldn't it? My master plugs aren't set to oversampling, and if I bypass of them sometimes it still overloads. If I try to edit a bus channel strip plugin while its playing, its almost a guarantee it will overload.

Also, this may be important, some times in the same project it plays without too many hiccups even when still a 1/4 of the tracks aren't frozen. While others it will have continuous issue when all are frozen. It seems to me that freezing doesn't do much? In all cases logic is the only thing open. Are there any other strategies I can employ? I know of the solo/mute fast and slow mode but the purpose of that is defeated when tracks are frozen.

Thanks in advance guys

What overloads: the CPU? the HD activity? Both? If after freezing, you still get CPU overloads, then bouncing (instead of freezing) isn't going to help. It'll only help if the issue is the HD meters peaking too high.

Otherwise I'd recommend you keep freezing to keep the higher resolution 32 bit floating point signal intact.

In both cases, wether bouncing in place or freezing, it's easy to go back to the unfrozen MIDI track, adjust your edits, and bouncing in place or freezing again.

If you do that (bounce in place) can you keep the midi track muted and turned off, so you can return to it for editing, but so it will not eat up your CPU?

I'll answer your question.

It does that by default. Source=Mute. Don't specify Delete.

What overloads: the CPU? the HD activity? Both? If after freezing, you still get CPU overloads, then bouncing (instead of freezing) isn't going to help. It'll only help if the issue is the HD meters peaking too high.

 

Otherwise I'd recommend you keep freezing to keep the higher resolution 32 bit floating point signal intact.

 

In both cases, wether bouncing in place or freezing, it's easy to go back to the unfrozen MIDI track, adjust your edits, and bouncing in place or freezing again.

Hmm you're right, my CPU peaks sometimes but my HD spikes nearly every time. Maybe that's why freezing seems to actually make it worse sometimes, could that be possible? Bouncing in place really clutters the arrangement view, I don't like doing it often. Are there other workarounds? Also, since I am on a 2011 Macbook Pro model my HD is not flash. Would an eventual upgrade help with these spikes?

As for the HD spikes, it depends on the type in virtual instruments - ie are they streaming samples? Can you force them to load all the samples in ram? Would you have enough ram to do that? What's the RPM of your drive 7200 or 5400?

I'd look at benching marking your drive and comparing it's performance to others online, a slow'ish drive, combined with lots of virtual instruments all simultaneously streaming data from the drive can cause these types of spikes.

An ssd - samsung evo would make a difference here as it's read rate is faster, and so the time it takes to read a sample is less, and when logic and all your virtual instruments and the os are all hitting the drive simultaneously to get real-time playback it will stand a significantly better chance of doing it, than it will using a 5400 rpm drive.